


In my arms I’ll catch you

by det395



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Anxiety Attacks, Astronauts, Conversations about Death, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mind Control, Near Death Experiences, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25168615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/det395/pseuds/det395
Summary: When their space pod unexpectedly loses power, Dan and Phil must prepare for the unknown as they start drifting toward an alien planet
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 48
Kudos: 39
Collections: Phandom Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank you Ky for beta-ing!  
> and pls [share Asher's awesome art!](https://nebulaearecool.tumblr.com/post/623191438423883776/here-is-my-first-finished-art-piece-for-the)  
> title from "Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes" by Thievery Corporation

Dan has never seen Phil like this. Never seen him leave Dan to do all the work himself. Never seen him turn so decidedly away from the controls. Never seen him curl up and hold onto the bar with that steel grip. 

That means it’s definitely not the time for Dan to have a mental breakdown. That will have to come later.

He’s so close to the mic that his spit gets all over it. “Commander? Come in, Commander,” Dan repeats. 

Static greets him back.

Unprofessionally, Dan puts his mouth to the microphone and says a brash, _“Hello?”_

The static comes back clearer now. “Your pod has suddenly lost power. The back-up generator will last you for thirty days, but starting the engine will drain it rapidly. Dispatch will be sent to retrieve you both immediately. Over.”

“But can we fix it?” Dan asks, tightening his hand on the ledge.

“We cannot find the source of the problem and we do not believe you have the needed tools on hand. The velocity you are moving at is too great to be safe to examine. Hang tight,” the woman on the other end of the radio says. 

Dan opens his mouth, then closes it. He has no productive statements to make that don’t include obscenities, and he knows, even though everything has gone wrong, that there’s no use in getting fired after he’s finally been sent on this mission. He should act brave and confident. Inside his head he curses the goddamn engineer responsible for this mistake.

He dismisses his commander after listening to the instructions to not boot up the engine under any circumstances. He turns the radio off and takes the opportunity to kick the wall.

“If they didn’t underfund fucking everything…” he trails off, then remembers Phil. 

Still not the time for a mental breakdown.

He turns and drifts closer. Dan can see how tense Phil is through the bulky suit. 

“Phil? Did you hear? We’ll be okay. They’re sending a dispatch. It sucks that our mission is ruined, but it’ll be fine, we have a back-up generator, it lasts—”

“I’m not deaf,” Phil retorts. Dan pushes backward a foot and drifts upward with a frown. He’s never heard Phil be anything but kind. He can be stubborn and a bit snarky sure, but he’s never pointed such malice at Dan.

“I know this is stressful, but maybe we should just…”

“Dan.”

“Yeah?”

“Please be quiet for a bit?” Phil looks as if he’s trying to drift into the wall.

Dan can’t get more than a few feet away from him in the tiny pod. He tries his best, lingering by the command controls and staring at the wall. It’s better than looking _out_ as unfamiliarity and hopelessness begin to invade his brain. Plummeting into the vastness of space, the infinite pool of darkness and ice and heat where they might, just might, be lost forever with no hope of anyone finding them. 

What if he’s stuck here with only his coworker to never set foot on his home planet again?

Well, he hopes Phil is more than just a coworker by now. Phil’s his favourite coworker, and many days he thinks that must be reciprocated. With the way they make each other laugh, the way they’ve looked out at the stars and discussed the potentials of the universe. Not the actual parameters and features, but the _meaning_ of it all. Phil once cried on his shoulder, homesickness getting him down when video chats were suspended for maintenance. They have to be real friends by now. Even if it will be platonic for the rest of time, Dan’s not complaining _that_ much.

Except he’s never seen Phil like this, never been pushed away as if Dan is just something taking up his space. As if Dan isn’t a comfort to Phil at all.

Dan feels resentful, as inappropriate as that may be right now. He’s been looking forward to this mission since, well, since he first had the dream of being an astronaut. He hasn’t been given a mission of his own before. Blame the tendency to procrastinate sure, but none of his Commanders have trusted him so much thus far. 

And his first mission was going to be partnered by _Phil Lester._ Who doesn’t ever make Dan feel like a subordinate. Who doesn’t even make this seem like a _job_. They were going to play cards and laugh as loud as they want and who knows what else in this small pod. It was only a short expedition to collect some materials and return, but it felt big.

Maybe just to Dan. 

The logical part of his brain tells him that this stuff happens all the time, that they have capable people looking after them and coming to rescue them. It will be fine, and maybe they will have a redo after.

He turns at the sound of Phil pulling off his suit. Dan follows in his actions and is grateful to not be in that ghastly orange anymore. The black t-shirt and spandex are much more his aesthetic.

“Dan?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I’m sorry.” 

With that single statement, in that sad voice, any and all animosity dissipates out of Dan’s bones. He turns to see ruffled hair and glassy eyes uncovered from Phil’s suit.

“It’s okay. It…” he gestures vaguely at the radio.

“Yeah.”

“...sucks.” He moves a bit closer, timidly. “It’ll be fine, though.”

Dan is considering if it would be appropriate to start their long break of card-playing now that their work is pointless but Phil begins to ruffle through their supplies and scribble on a notebook. Dan watches and eventually figures that Phil is sorting their resources and counting the calories on their meal packets.

Maybe this setback _is_ as scary as it seems. 

-

Phil can’t possibly find more work to do, Dan thinks. It seems like he’s going to start screwing panels off the wall and counting wires to write down next. It’s past the time they are supposed to sleep and he can’t quite shake that dread that comes with flying through space in a pod that has a timer on its keeping-them-alive capabilities.

Finally, he sighs. “Phil.”  
  
“Yeah?” Phil doesn’t look at him.

“Let’s chill, yeah? There’s only so much we can do, mate.”

Phil seems a bit frazzled by that, getting a fist in his hair. He looks down at his notebook.

“You can sleep if you want,” Phil says.

“Why don’t we play cards?”

Phil seems to consider it and, to Dan’s minor surprise, concedes. He doesn’t push his luck by saying more. 

They linger by the window and he pulls out his pack of cards in a tight leather pouch with a string on it. 

Phil is distracted and this is definitely not the expedition Dan had dreamed of all this time. He kicks Phil gently and gets big blue eyes staring back at him.

“Remember what the commander says about how bad bottling up emotions is when you’re already homesick and under pressure and how it just means you’re going to blow up one day and—”

“I know, I know.” Phil looks away.

“So…”

“It’s not really like I’m bottling up my emotions, I just feel kind of… frozen.” Phil looks out the window.

“I understand that. I sometimes feel like that, too.”

“It’s not like that.” Phil shakes his head quickly.

“What’s it like?”

Phil huffs out a laugh that seems a bit strange at this moment. “Um. Anxiety attack.”

“I’ve struggled a lot with my own mental health,” Dan says quickly. “I might not understand your _feelings_ completely, but you can talk to me about it.”

Phil nods and chews on his lip. “You just kept it together so well. Thank God you did. But I’m sorry I dropped the ball when we got the news.”

Dan shrugs. “It’s fine. Mom instincts, or something.”

He gets a small giggle for that joke, but it quickly goes away and Phil looks sad. Phil is gripping his cards far too tightly against his chest.

“An… attack... like that hasn’t happened in a long time. I thought I was, like, past that. I used to get so worried that it would happen during an emergency that I’d bring so much anxiety onto myself, because I felt like I just couldn’t hold it together and I shouldn’t be an astronaut, at all. It’s been okay for a long time, but now it’s happened again, in a _real_ emergency, and I’m scared I can’t do this again. And I don’t have the meds anymore.”

Dan pushes a bit closer. Phil won’t meet his eyes anymore.

“Phil, nothing bad happened,” he says.

“But it could. People’s lives are put at risk. Someone with this kind of job should be much more capable.”

“Then I shouldn’t be here, either. Some days it feels like I’ll never be able to get out of bed, that I cannot physically do my jobs. That I’ll just stop point-blank and it’ll be over. We won’t get ‘over it’, but we just have to cope the best we can.” Dan gently kicks Phil again so he lifts his eyes.

“Maybe everyone feels like this.”

“A lot of people. A lot of the best people, the ones who care too much,” Dan nods. “We’re doing good, aren’t we?”  
  


Phil smirks. “If I ever get written up it’s because you’ve distracted me.”  
  


Phil suddenly hooks his ankles around Dan’s legs and pulls closer. Dan’s expression must change because Phil quickly drops his legs and looks a bit shocked.

“Sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” Phil says.

“It’s fine.”

“The other day I almost hugged the Commander. My family was pretty touchy-feely, it’s weird to not do that for so long,” Phil says.

“You can touch me,” Dan says.

Phil is suddenly wiggling his eyebrows and Dan tries his best to glare at him.

Phil gets Dan’s ankles in a tight hold again and drifts closer, but he’s not looking at Dan’s eyes anymore. Dan gulps, hoping his eyes aren’t horrendously wide but oh God his heart must be beating dangerously fast. 

Phil stops a foot away from his face. “You get a weird red patch on your cheek sometimes.” He lifts a hand and slowly pokes it, “There.”

Dan definitely can feel all the blood rushing to his face. “Probably just another deformity like my dimples.”  
  


“Deformity?” Phil looks doubtful.

“It’s just, like, a muscle that caved in on my cheek,” Dan says, wondering why he’s explaining this all of a sudden.

“I guess deformities don’t have to be bad,” Phil says. His glasses begin to drift with his movement and Phil pushes them back up his nose.

Dan isn’t usually that tactile but the way Phil’s shins warm up his ankles right now, pressed firmly against his skin, really does something for him. It must have been a long time since he’s been touched in a way that isn’t a clap on the shoulder.

“It does feel better to talk to you about this stuff. You’re a good friend, Dan,” he says.

Dan bites back a self-deprecating joke. “You too,” he says.

“I love space, but I almost didn’t come because I didn’t want to leave my friends and family,” Phil says.

“Did you put ‘I love space’ on your resume?” Dan asks. Phil kicks against his legs but it doesn’t manage to be very aggressive against their lack of gravity. To Dan’s despair, Phil drops his grip on Dan’s legs.

“I wanted to get away from the world, so space seemed all right for me,” Dan says. He doesn’t know if he makes up the sad look on Phil’s face in his head or if it’s real. 

“But I like hanging out with you,” he adds on. He’s sure the blood is flooding back into his cheek an embarrassing amount and Phil just might see through him and kick far away but instead, Phil drifts a bit closer.

-

Phil makes Dan sleep first because he covered for Phil when everything went wrong. Dan tries to protest but he can see the rock hard stubbornness in his way, so he grabs his sleeping bag and ties it to a bar on the side of the cabin so he won’t move around. Phil comes and secures the straps before going to his notebook. It wasn’t the fun expedition Dan was hoping for, but it seems as though they’ve grown closer as friends anyway.

They had only flown for a few hours, dispatch should catch up to them imminently, then everything will be all right.

He can’t sleep well on a normal day and it definitely doesn’t happen now. He’s not going to say those _what-ifs_ out loud to Phil, but he can’t help but list them in his head right now. The list is extensive, though imaginative. It’s easy to spiral to the aftermath of his family getting notified about him crashing into an asteroid and turning into a blood and guts slushy floating with the stars.

Not the _worst_ way to die, really. It’s somehow easier to imagine it happening to himself than happening to Phil. 

Phil, who maxes out his time every single day to video chat his mum and tries to sneak all the extra time he can. How would she take news like that?

It’s fine. Nothing’s going to happen to them.

He’s starting to calm down, starting to fill his mind with mundane distractions. He’s fidgeting restlessly and wishing he could shake the rest of his anxiety. He’s telling himself everything is going to be okay and he’s made it this far.

Until he’s suddenly overcome with a different sensation. 

A fast, sharp sensation that thrusts him into full consciousness by such a strong wave of momentum that it knocks the wind out of his lungs.

Gravity shifts and he has the disorienting sensation of being on a twisting roller coaster. The scream in his ear is far too loud for this to be a dream. His chest fills with dread.

Something grabs his torso and he opens his eyes to Phil much closer, trying to unlatch him from his bed. Repetitive banging registers in Dan’s brain. He lifts his arms and tries to help, but Phil is holding onto his torso for dear life and restricting him. They need to get strapped into their chairs before one of them slams their head against the wall because they are _definitely_ spinning out of control.

“What happened?!” Dan yells. Phil is bouncing off of him and being reeled back in by the momentum of the fucking chaos of their route. 

“I don’t know! Nothing showed on the radar!”

“We’re spinning!”  
  
“I know! Fuck, I can’t get this latch.” Dan doesn’t know if Phil’s hands are shaking or if it’s just the movement all around him.

Dan shoves his hands down while Phil continues to hang off his torso. He gets the latch undone and begins to pull himself out with all of his strength, trying to make sure he doesn’t fly across the pod.

“To the seats!” he yells. 

It strains his muscles to scale around the wall and he finds out the banging that has yet to cease is Phil’s legs knocking repeatedly against the wall.

Getting strapped in the copilot seat isn’t the relief he was hoping for while his brain whips back and forth inside his head. He manages to glance at what Phil is doing.

“We don’t have the energy to fly!” Dan yells. 

“We have no choice! I have to override it and use the generator.”  
  


Dan can’t argue with that. He manages to press the controls relying significantly on muscle memory and then he feels rather than sees the rumble of the engine as Phil begins to slowly offset the spinning until it’s only his mind doing the horrible disorienting motion.

“I’m going to be sick,” Phil mutters, turning off the engine when they’re steady and slowed slightly. Dan sees Phil holding his temples and swaying. It’s definitely his hands that are trembling.

“We hit something but nothing showed on the radar.” Phil clicks on the screen and Dan stares at it skeptically.

Dan stumbles over his words for a few moments. “Well. There’s obviously an explanation.”

Phil stares at it. “There’s nothing on the radar!” 

“I know, I see that.”

“We’re even more off-course,” Phil says.

  
“Yeah.”

Phil goes quiet. Completely quiet. It isn’t just his voice, everything about him has gone still. The light has gone out of his eyes, the tremble out of his skin, the flush out of his cheeks. 

Is this what he means by frozen?

Dan doesn’t want to be left alone again, he doesn’t think he can handle that. “Phil?”

Phil gives no indication that he’s heard Dan speak.

Without thinking about it, Dan slaps his shoulder. “Phil!”

Phil curls in on himself and looks over with wide eyes.

“Don’t—Fuck, sorry.” Dan puts a hand over his eyes so they stop moving his vision so much. “Just tell me if there’s something to be scared of right now. You’ve done this before, I haven’t, so maybe I don’t have the knowledge.” Dan shrugs helplessly.

Phil shakes his head. “It’s not like that. It’s…” 

A small noise comes from the back of his throat and Dan leans in closer to hear.

“You’ve heard the rumours, right? About this region?” Phil asks. He points at the radar.

Dan immediately rolls his eyes. He sure has. Most people joke about it, others believe in it wholeheartedly. It’s nothing more than an overhyped ghost story made up between bored astronauts of sightings and anomalies in observations that conveniently never have proof.

“It happened to me!” Phil says. “I saw something active, then it didn’t save the recording. Just like what happened to everyone else.”

“It didn’t save because the bloody technology is too old and everything’s underfunded,” Dan says.

Phil looks away pointedly. He goes to check battery levels and stays silent.

“Well?”  
  
“We’re… okay,” Phil says, not sounding confident.

Dan has the urge to scream and his patience for Phil has all but ran out.

“Should we turn around and fly in the other direction?” Phil asks.

“No!?” Dan says, incredulously.

Phil’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “I don’t like being out of control like this.”

“Well, you better let go of that because it’s better than being dead.” He hears how harsh it comes out, but he doesn’t want to take it back.

Phil looks at him for a moment. “We should eat,” he says, going to grab their things.

“Only if you’re sure we aren’t going to get an alien invasion in the next few minutes,” Dan mumbles sarcastically.

Phil doesn’t retort, just puts a silver package in Dan’s hands. They both eat quietly. God, Dan misses fresh food, but this food fills him up and with every bite his anger recedes. He turns in the chair to offer a small smile to Phil, the only apology he can muster now.

“I think I need that card game distraction with you again,” Phil says.

-

They radio the space station but don’t get through. To be fair, it’s 3:41 and most astronauts try harder to keep their circadian rhythms in check. For now, Poker with hand-drawn chips in Phil’s notebook is enough.

“What’s your worst fear?” Phil asks. It comes out of nowhere, his voice almost silent.

Dan rocks side to side in his chair and fans out the cards against his finger. “I don’t know if that’s the best conversation to have right now.”

“Trying to not think about it isn’t helping me,” Phil says. “If it’s too hard for you we don’t have to, though.”

Dan shrugs. “I’m always filled with existential dread, I’m kind of desensitized to those scary topics.”

“I feel like you’re pretty sensitive.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“I mean that as a good thing,” Phil says. Dan remembers quickly that this is Phil, not some asshole.

“Yeah, okay. It eats me alive.” He laughs dryly but Phil gives him a long, understanding look. He instantly feels peeled apart, bare to Phil’s eyes, as if Phil is trying to burrow in and see Dan’s soul. Dan wants that, but he can’t help but start sweating at the thought.

“My worst fear.” He stares at Phil’s knobby knees. “Do you mean right now or in general?” Dan asks.

Phil seems to think for a moment. “In general.”

He clears his throat. “Finding out that I had a meaning in life, that there was something for me, where I would have been so happy and so fulfilled, and just… not realizing. Or failing. I tell myself all the time that there is no meaning in life, and it might sound crazy to others but it’s the most comforting thing in the world to me when my worst fear is missing out on what I long for.” 

Dan raises his eyes from Phil’s knees. Phil is staring at him.

“And how about right now?” Phil asks.

“Losing all chance of finding meaning,” Dan says. He doesn’t know how he managed to kid his younger self that he wouldn’t care about dying. He cares, far too much.

Phil keeps staring at him, looking open and soft.

“And you?” Dan asks, suddenly uncomfortable under Phil’s view.

“It’s not going to sound like much compared to yours,” Phil says with a small giggle.

Dan shakes his head and waits.

“Making my mum sad,” Phil says.

Dan has to hold back a coo. He tilts his head and watches Phil’s sad smile, his moist eyelashes.

“Except…” Phil begins, then pauses for a long while. He sighs. “Sometimes I imagine how it will feel when she dies… this sounds horrible. But after she’s had a long, happy life. With me there until the very end. And then after I can do what I _really_ want to do without worrying about her. Or her worrying about me.”

“What do you really want to do?” Dan asks.

Phil looks out the large porthole window behind his head. Dan nods in understanding. He thinks he understands, at least. That’s how it feels in his chest.

“And right now?” Dan asks.

“Dying.” Phil speaks quickly, then looks down.

“Yeah. There’s definitely that.” Dan huffs out a laugh and meets Phil’s eyes, holding his gaze. 

He’ll stare at those eyes for as long as Phil will let him, he thinks. He wonders how they look in the light of the sun on earth, bathed outside under the rays. How they look up close. Those flashes of colour feel like a trick of the eye but Dan swears he sees a million different shades of blue, yellow and green. 

Phil hooks his foot around Dan’s ankle again.

“Sorry for the footsies. You’re just far away,” Phil mutters.

Dan really, truly thinks of saying ‘come closer’, but instead his mouth just says, “It’s okay.”

“Do you ever think you’ve left your meaning behind on earth?” Phil asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Maybe we were a bit rebellious in our dreams?” Phil smiles, looking back at the window.

“What, maybe our meanings were settling down with a nice girl and an office job?” Dan tries hard to not roll his eyes.

“Not a girl,” Phil mutters.

Dan looks at him. “Do you want to come closer?”  
  


-

This could be a bad idea if their pod hits another unidentified flying object, but tying themselves close to the window and letting their legs tangle together feels too good. They bounce at every push and pull movement, the dark expanse of space as the backdrop that he almost recognizes as home now.

It looks different out here. Maybe it’s just because they’re so untethered, lost in some sense of the word.

Phil tangles their fingers together and Dan breathes in every brush against his skin. _God,_ he’s been lonely.

“I think this is what pirates did,” Phil says.

“Uh.” Dan snorts. “Care to explain?” 

“They got so lonely that they all began hooking up on the ship,” Phil says.

“I’m not desperate, I’m just gay,” Dan says. He beams at how much it makes Phil laugh.

“I’m not saying that! I think the pirates were gay! Or bisexual. But y’know.”

Dan pulls a bit closer and laughs. “Okay, okay, sure.”

Phil’s breath smells like their space-beef and their hands are sweating against each other but he couldn’t care less. Who would have thought losing all control over their lives would feel strangely freeing, almost liminal. His worries are suddenly quiet.

“I think you liked me even before now,” Phil says, jutting his chin up all cocky.

“Eh.” Dan shrugs and fakes a grimace. It doesn’t work very well.

“Shut up, you like me.” Phil pulls closer and sticks his tongue between his teeth.

Dan tries really, really hard not to smile. 

“Question. What planet would you want to live on, if you had the ability to survive any conditions?” Phil asks. He runs his foot along the back of Dan’s calf.

“None. I think humans would just ruin it. Like ‘Exogenesis’.”

Phil gasps and kicks Dan’s leg. “Yes! Oh my God, the fucking best.”

“Right?” Dan wonders if Phil is going to rant about Muse to him again. It was their first conversation about something other than work, and it feels like it happened a lifetime ago. Phil moves on quickly this time.

“But also you’re such a pessimist. What if you were alone on the planet?”

“See, I like being alone in my own space, in a quiet area, but being completely alone would be depressing if I didn’t have Internet.”

“True. Other astronauts always laugh when I ask this, but do you believe in aliens?” Phil asks.

Dan does laugh. “Obviously, yeah.”

“Really?”  
  
“Not how people think, though. Microbes.”

“No, not what I mean, that’s boring.”

“It’s not boring, just small. Still just as potentially dangerous,” Dan says. He runs a finger across the back of Phil’s hand. It’s surprisingly soft.

Phil rolls his eyes. “So rational.”

“Thank you,” Dan says.

“Not a compliment.”  
  
“I know.”

“What would you do if you found out aliens were going to invade? You have, let’s say one week to prepare.”

“Is this ‘twenty-one questions’?”

“Sure.”

“I would just chill.”

“What?” Phil’s voice raises in disbelief.

“It’s too much pressure, man. Can’t control everything.” Dan shrugs.

“You’re crazy.” 

“That’s subjective.”

As Dan speaks the walls around them shake, just the slightest bit, but impossible to miss. They stay quiet until it stops and they give each other a look.

“I’m going to try the radio again,” Phil says, breaking away from their tangled limbs.

“Yeah, do that.”

He tries for longer this time, until Dan barely notices the sound of static in the background of his mind. 

He stares out the window. It’s one of his favourite things, to look at all the stars. Even if there’s little to find in them from the naked eye, Dan still likes to search.

One star catches his eye today. It’s bright. It’s probably nothing, though.

“I don’t think I’m getting a signal,” Phil says.

“It’s set up automatically to the ship.”

“I know. But I’m not.”

Dan watches Phil open a storage panel and bring out a box of tools, immediately beginning to unscrew the plastic off the radio. Dan finds a flashlight and comes closer. He looks in, too, searching for wires that disconnected or a rusted transmitter. 

Phil shoves the screwdriver in Dan’s hand and grabs the flashlight instead.

“I’m probably going to break it,” Phil mutters. “Your hands are more steady.”

Dan checks everything meticulously, twisting each wire gently in the grasp of the tweezers to double check and dusting out the control pad. He eventually drops his hands and puts the radio back together, turning it on to hear only static.

“Well. We didn’t make it worse,” Phil mutters, strangely calm. 

“There’s a small possibility that we are lost, Phil,” Dan says.

“I know.”

“Are you going to panic?” 

“Um. Not yet.” 

“How long until you panic, then?” Dan asks.

Phil checks the battery. 

“A few days,” Phil says. He laughs a bit. It’s dry and strange but Dan can’t help but chuckle with him. Moisture forms like a blob on his eyes. The feeling in his chest is like nothing he’s ever experienced before, his entire future laid out as a question in front of him.

Phil takes his hand and pulls him away from the controls.

-

Phil sleeps, and then Dan does after. ‘Sleep’ is almost too generous of a word for their dozes, though, and the skin under their eyes are puffed up from worry and tiredness.

They dig into the best meals they have, dried ribs and potatoes for today. Phil tangles their legs together and lets them drift weightlessly.

“Do you think we’re in shock?” Dan asks.

“That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Phil agrees. They haven’t tried the radio. They know, by now, someone should have contacted _them_.

“Is it just me, or does it look a bit different outside?” Dan asks.

Phil looks and stares for a bit. “Maybe?” He furrows his eyebrows.

The more Dan stares, the more he thinks it's an illusion. 

“Our descent into madness begins,” Dan says.

“Oh God, please don’t eat me.” Phil looks at him so earnestly that Dan cracks up, laughing loudly.

“I promise. Not that I think you wouldn’t taste great.”

Phil meets his pinky, then grabs his whole hand and hangs on. They look outside some more. Dan blinks his eyes. It’s just stars, and blackness. Mostly blackness.

“We could have sex?” Phil says. Dan sputters, sending spit floating into the air. He tries to wave the floating moisture away as inconspicuous as he can.

“I, uh, yeah, we could.” Dan can’t help but laugh a bit more.

“It’s a typical end of life request, and we don’t have many options here,” Phil says, a cheeky smile suddenly pinned on his face. “I don’t know if sex is much of an option, though. Have you ever done it?”

“I have not had sex in space, no,” Dan says. His laugh comes out embarrassingly high-pitched.

“Is it possible?”  
  


Dan purses his lips, pretending he hasn’t thought about it lots before.

“Blood flow would be difficult,” Phil says, tipping his eyes downward.

“It would be.”

“There are always other things, though,” Phil says.

Dan lets his mouth fall open slightly. He looks at the smile on Phil’s face, trying to gauge his seriousness when Phil looks back to the window.

“I swear it’s, like, green outside,” Phil says.

Dan turns his head.

“Tell me that’s not green, you see it, right?” Phil asks.

Dan gulps once. “Uh. I think I only see green because you put it in my head.”

“No, it is green. Just a tinge.”

“It’s nothingness, there can be no colour to it,” Dan says.

“Unless there’s a light source.”

“What would—” Dan furrows his eyebrows. They look at their radar at the same time but the screen is black.

“It’s like… some force is shutting down everything.” Phil bites at his lip and comes closer.

“Force?” Dan repeats, skeptical. He shakes his head, he doesn’t want to engage with the superstition right now.

The expanse of space is the same, stars twinkle and nothingness exists in between as far as their eyes can see. Except now there does seem to be a particular hue, a gradient forming in the centre and fading out, right in the direction they are headed, a definite light source. Dan pulls Phil closer to the window, and their view is unmistakable.

A star sitting right in the centre of their field of vision is emitting all this light. It has to be.

“We could turn the engine on, change directions,” Phil says, voice quiet.

“We could,” Dan breathes out.

“There’s still time to try to figure out what went wrong with the power,” Phil mutters, entirely unconvincing.

“There is,” Dan agrees.

Phil tightens his grip on Dan’s hand. “It’s a planet, isn’t it?”

“We would have known about it,” Dan says.

“Unless…”

“Unless,” Dan agrees.

The green orb grows bigger and bigger as the minutes and then hours drag on. They don’t move.


	2. Chapter 2

Dan doesn’t know how many hours pass. It could have been days. It’s hard to think about that with the view in front of them. 

Something made them accelerate, slowly but surely, until they were pulled into an orbit around the strange planet. It emits enough green fluorescence to change the colour of the entire inner cabin of the pod. It flashes in and out like a dim lighthouse as they rotate in their orbit.

It doesn’t seem as though they are going to be pulled into the atmosphere right now. For all intents and purposes, they are currently surviving. 

It doesn’t mean that they relax, or that they even move. Not a twitch or a mumble, not a muscle shifting for hours on end. They stay close, but whether or not Phil is aware of Dan anymore he’s not sure. 

Dan knows he should say something, but words spoken would mean they are either woken up out of this dream, or they will know it’s real.

At some point, Phil grabs his notebook and seems to just write everything he sees. Dan watches his hand move, but the writing is so messy it's illegible.

His throat is raspy and sore when he does finally speak.

“You think the dispatch is still coming?” Dan asks.

Phil doesn’t reply but his hand stops writing. He stretches out his fingers.

“I don’t really think they are,” Dan answers for himself.

There, out the window, is wisps of what must be gas, shifting and puffing out like delicate solar flares, the brightest green colour Dan has ever seen in his life, though he can see different shades below the surface. Everything about it screams toxic.

Within the gas, where the ripples pulse and the gas shifts to reveal the layers below, are dozens of space pods and space ships not entirely unlike their own soaring through the mist.

-

Phil eventually grabs them food and water and Dan realizes how parched and weak he feels. They eat slowly and Dan thinks Phil is forcing it down just as much as he is right now. Dan brushes his teeth roughly and wipes at his face with a slightly dampened towel. They haven’t met eyes this entire time. Dan is scared of what he might see. What might show in Phil’s expression.

Dan tries talking to Phil again and has to clear his throat a few times. “Has the panic come again?” he asks.

“I think I’m past that stage.” Phil’s voice is hoarse, it’s easy to tell he hasn’t spoken for hours. The green light pouring into the room makes his pale skin look ghastly.

“Yeah, checks out.”

“We both see that, yeah?” Phil points out the window.

Dan looks again, almost expecting to see the same space he’s seen for the past few months. The same old blackness and stars. But he only sees green and movement that definitely should not be there.

“Yep.”

“I feel cold.” Phil presses the button on the radio, and not even static comes out. He taps on the radar but it shows no sign of life. He touches a few different buttons, but they don’t light up.

“It would be much colder,” Dan says in response to the non-question. “There’s still oxygen, yeah?” 

Phil checks the levels. “Yeah. Lots.”

Phil looks at him. Then kicks off the wall and drifts right into Dan’s arms, pulling him in by the shoulders and shoving his face in Dan’s neck. Dan holds him gently, not quite sure who is trembling more. 

The hug is grounding enough. He didn’t know he needed this small piece of comfort. But he did. He needs to know that Phil understands, that Phil is here with him, that they have each other.

Phil hangs on for a long time and Dan braces himself to persevere through their waiting game. Because at this point, he thinks it might be a grim end.

“They might still come, and see the green light and find us that way,” Phil mumbles with a half-hearted shrug.

Dan doesn’t say it out loud, but he doubts it. Maybe he is just a giant pessimist. 

He’s seen the space movies where incredible miracles happen, but why would that be _him?_

Phil is breathing as if he might lose oxygen at any second. They just might, to be fair. Dan has no guess of what this gas is that surrounds him. A chill creeps into his bones and Phil’s cold skin against his doesn’t help much.

“You’re warm,” Phil mutters, so Dan lets him continue to cling and line up the skin on their arms.

Something prickles at the back of his neck, and he realizes it's the soft sound of static filling the room. They turn slowly and both lock eyes with the suddenly lit-up radio.

Phil goes toward it slowly.

“Commander? Come in, Commander. If there’s anyone out there… Mayday?” Phil looks back at Dan, uncertainty in his expression. Dan gives him an encouraging nod. Phil repeats the words over and over again. 

A different sound comes through the speaker, it sounds slightly like a bee, just barely indistinguishable from the static but him and Phil meet eyes nonetheless.

“Hello?” Phil says into the mic.

The radio goes silent for a moment and then echos back the same word. A quiet “ _hello_ ” that sounds exactly like Phil’s voice, muddied by the radio quality.

“Hello?” Phil says, louder this time. 

“ _Hello?_ ” Repeats the radio, in what is unmistakably Phil’s voice. Dan has listened to his radio fuzz voice for many hours on the job. He would know it anywhere. He feels a little light-headed all of a sudden.

“Why the hell would it…” Phil mutters, and sure enough, the fuzzy sentence repeats back. Phil clicks off the radio.

He turns back toward Dan, looking as if he’s going to come in for a hug again when Dan sees the light turn on behind Phil’s shoulder.

Static fills the background once again and Dan and Phil freeze, looking at each other.

“This isn’t a dream, huh?” Phil chokes out. The radio mimics it back, “ _this isn’t a dream, huh?”_.

Dan shakes his head. The sound of static makes the hair stand on the back of his neck and he bites down on his lip.

“I have a really weird feeling, Dan,” Phil says. Radio-Phil repeats. Phil clicks the button, watching it turn off and then automatically on again.

Dan nods in agreement.

“I think we should use the rest of our energy to fly away, try to get far enough from the gravitational pull that maybe our crew can find us. We’ll have to bundle up and preserve heat. If we want to, y’know,” Phil says. He looks back out at the green planet, a sad look on his face. Dan feels something inside of him prick at the echoed statement on the radio.

“Yeah, okay.” He knows he’s going to hear his own voice echo on the radio, but it makes his heart beat fast to hear it.

They don’t strap in, they just begin clicking buttons, but none light up and Dan thinks it’s all pointless. Well, at least he gets to die with an amazing discovery, the knowledge of more.

Then, their momentum shifts, sure and steady, and their world outside moves, except it’s going in the wrong direction.

“Other way,” Dan says. He listens, but the radio doesn’t play his voice.

“I’m not flying!” Phil shifts the joystick just to show that he has no control. Dan doesn’t have to look to know they’re going straight toward the planet, into the atmosphere and out of their orbit with no controls activated. The pod shakes a little as it moves.

Dan and Phil drift sideways with the motion and meet eyes, wide and intense. 

Dan is the one to move close now, as the reality settles into his chest, the grim end finally here, and he can’t help but just hope it won’t hurt too bad. He gets Phil’s soft arms in his and looks into those blue eyes and tries to have just one more moment where he can pretend his life hasn’t changed so totally and drastically within a few mere days, a moment where death isn’t so imminent and dragging down his shoulders. He clings to Phil, revelling in his luck to not be alone, if anything.

Phil kisses his cheek and Dan nuzzles closer as their cabin gets impossibly brighter, greener. He used to always say he hates people, hates meeting strangers and having the expectation of commitments. Maybe he never gave people, any people, a good enough chance. He quite likes this particular person here with him. They could have had a mundane life together if they went back to Earth and continued to enjoy each other’s presence this much.

He’s vaguely aware of the feeling of acceleration, pushing them toward the wall opposite, until they are pressed with their shoulders against cold metal. 

It crosses his mind that he could pray or something, find some comfort in an afterlife, but he doubts it would help. He has little hope that he’ll be granted to a good afterlife, so maybe he should be hoping God _isn’t_ real right now, and just keep saying his name in vain.

With a rush of courage, Dan looks toward the window. Details come into view as they move closer and closer and closer; he can see more space pods and strange metal shapes; it seems they must be endless, trapped inside the strange atmosphere. Is he seeing their same eternal fate looking back at them?

He thinks they just might be engulfed by the gas and freeze to death. Or maybe run out of oxygen, whichever comes first. Maybe something worse. 

He’d better accept it right now. If he holds hope it will only hurt all that much more. At least the end looks rather magnificent.

Something else catches his eye, and he has to blink for a moment because the green-on-green colours all around them are making it hard to see anything. But there, in the corner is more than a flash of light, it’s something 3D, something moving and swirling.

It’s the green gas, though impossible, it’s coming through the wall, in the cracks between the panels that _should_ be melded shut. It’s not possible. It repeats in his mind, _it’s not possible_. He shakes Phil’s shoulder roughly.

It _is_ the ‘something worse’ scenario. Poisonous toxins, choking on gas? 

“What the hell?” Phil says, and Dan knows he’s seen it, too.

“Yeah,” Dan says, dumbly.

“Hold your breath,” Phil says, and pushes off of Dan’s chest hard enough that he coughs. Phil is across the room in an instant, and throws a helmet at Dan, followed by a crumpled up suit. 

Dan didn’t have time to take a breath in, but the green gas is filling up the entire cabin, quickly, visibly surrounding him. Phil is in a cloud of it himself, puffing out his cheeks and struggling to get his feet in the suit. Dan pulls his suit on quickly, feeling his lungs already beginning to ache as he pulls the thick fabric over his shoulders. He’s not going to make it, he knows it already, his eyes are bulging open.

Outside the window, they are engulfed in green, but it’s blurred by the gas drifting into his dry eyes. At least he got to see this beautiful planet, he thinks, as he gasps in a breath and sees the end come at him fast.

He smells something familiar.

-

Is this what death feels like? 

It’s plausible, he thinks. The lightheadedness makes sense. His limbs feel a little numb. He seems… slow. His brain is chugging along like sludge. The oxygen has run out, he must be hypoxic.

Psychosis. That can happen with hypoxia, too. And it’s not all visuals, though he wouldn’t be surprised if the swirling green around his head was actually a symptom. No, psychosis can have many physiological symptoms. Even euphoria.

Yeah, because he’s smiling dumbly right now and it doesn’t make much sense. It’s too much effort to keep his teeth together, and his mouth widens all on its own. He can’t help but let out a giggle. It _is_ funny. He’s a subordinate astronaut with relatively menial maintenance tasks and he discovered a goddamn planet. By accident!

Death sure takes a while. Maybe it’s just his brain that’s slowed down to feel like every millisecond is an hour. That’s okay, though. He feels really, really, _really_ good.

He’s taken for granted this weightlessness, the experience of zero gravity. His first time experiencing it was ruined by nausea, and then, later on, it became another normal thing, an annoying thing at that. But holy shit. He’s flying right now. He can do somersaults, no effort. Up isn’t up anymore, he’s just suspended. In _space._ Dad might have doubted him once, but here he is. In fucking space.

And Phil is next to him, he almost forgot. Did young Dan, looking up at the stars for an escape from all the horrible shit in his life, for a new place where he can finally belong, ever think he’d be here alongside a man like this? He smiles at the thought of all the hot astronaut men he’s worked alongside. For Phil, who became one of his favourite friends ever, as sad as that may be. His life has turned for the better, and he should have spent more time being grateful.

He finally opens his eyes. Phil is looking at him. No, Phil is _holding_ him right now, what a great view, though his helmet is blocking his lovely hair. 

Phil is touching him. Tugging on something. He pulls the helmet over Dan’s head and clicks it on.

“You’re okay, Dan,” Phil says. Dan nods and looks toward the window, to the stunning green swirls.

“I am okay. We should stay here, Phil.”

“What?” Phil straightens out Dan’s head so they’re face to face.

“It’s lovely here,” Dan says. And it is. This is always what he wanted. To explore, to find something more than what his life offered. He breathes in, and the fragrance is gone. He breathes in a few more times and his mind slowly clears. He blinks at Phil with heavy eyelids. Phil’s arms are wrapped around his back.

“Oh,” Dan mutters. He pushes out of Phil’s arms, embarrassed.

“What did you mean by that?” Phil asks.

Dan doesn’t answer him, he looks around at the green mist hanging in the air. He thinks the space pod is moving, but he can’t be completely sure because the window is covered in the same green.

He still feels rather content, but the strange euphoria left quickly. He hears his name being said but doesn’t tune in. He wants to know more about this planet, what exactly _that_ was _._

“Dan, please.” Something grabs his arm and he finally looks at Phil.

“I saw gas going into your ears and eyes, Dan,” Phil says.

Dan puts a hand up as if to check but just smacks his helmet.

“My suit's oxygen is going down really fast,” Phil says. His eyes are wide. 

“We shouldn’t prolong this, Phil. I don’t know what will happen to us, this gas is something else. But we should just go forward.”

Phil keeps staring at him. 

“You always wanted to find a new world, didn’t you?” Dan says. “And I think, at this point, we don’t have much of a choice. I know it’s the end, but I think we’ll be all right, okay? Stick with me.”

“I think you’re really great, Dan. It’s been fun,” Phil says.

Dan smiles. He clips off his helmet but leaves it resting on his shoulders. Quickly, green gas moves inside, as if it's alive, and fills up the glass. Just before it covers his eyes, he sees Phil unclip his own helmet and lift it off his head.

It feels good to shed his suit and let the gas drift over his skin. He closes his eyes and breathes in the sweet fragrance through his nose.

When he opens his eyes, Phil has tilted backward from his line of view, his limbs outstretched and his eyes closed. The suit hangs off his legs.

Dan wonders if he’s dead. He puts out a hand and pokes Phil, and to his surprise, Phil looks over at him.

Phil smiles. 

Dan keeps his hand outstretched until Phil takes his hand and pulls them close together. The soft skin feels so nice to Dan, he rubs his fingers over his knuckles and then brings his other hand slowly to Phil’s cheek.

It’s even softer. It feels lovely, and the red tint on Phil looks so lovely, as does the way his eyes flutter in pleasure and the way his skin stretches with his smile. He moves his hand, overcome with the need to know if Phil’s lips are just as soft. He swipes his thumb across Phil’s lower lip and revels in the image of Phil gently kissing it like it’s instinct.

It’s enough. Dan pulls in and finds those lips with his own mouth. He presses them together gently and lets them pull apart as they float a touch away. He’s glad he could do it before they died.

It’s been a long time waiting for death. Who knew death would be so slow? Who knew death would feel so good? 

Phil kisses him again, and again. Is this how it’s supposed to be?

“We’re alive,” Phil whispers against him. Those soft hands touch Dan’s cheekbones and he can’t speak for a moment.

“I feel good,” Dan says.

“We found a new world, Dan.” Phil smiles at him, looking loose and giddy, his eyes only half-open.

Phil pulls his arms tight around Dan’s neck and twists their legs together, this time trapping Dan’s thigh between his own and squeezing tightly.

Yeah, Dan thinks he can live with this. He revels in the strange sensation of gas tickling his skin.

-

The intense euphoria soon leaves but in its place, deep contentment settles in Dan’s bones while he begins to feel, only slightly, like reality returns. 

Their watches have stopped working, giving him an unsettling feeling of not knowing how much time has passed, but he feels like it’s been forever. 

He nudges Phil to get his attention. His lips are tingling and he feels a bit self-conscious under Phil’s sudden gaze, but he tries not to let it show.

“Are you okay?” Dan asks.

Phil nods. “I really am. Right now, at least.”

“You did good, Phil. We’ve stayed calm, and I think that’s something we can be proud of,” Dan says. Phil beams at him.

Green gas still surrounds them, lingering in the air. It’s slightly sweet-smelling and not heavy or particularly noticeable, aside from the colour. Dan bats some away. 

“Are _you_ okay?” Phil asks.

Dan nods. And he thinks he is, whether or not it’s a rational assessment of the situation.

“What do you think it is?” Dan pushes his hand through the gas again.

“Chemistry was my worst subject,” Phil says, and Dan snorts.

  
“It had an… effect on us,” Dan says, looking at Phil for confirmation. Phil nods.

His brain seems clear again. He wishes he had the resources to research it right now. Once again, he has that urge to _know_ , like he used to feel taking Wikipedia binges and dreaming about all the information in between, everything that was unknown. He feels almost frustrated without an outlet for that curiosity.

“It’s so cool,” Phil breathes out. He seems to have the same idea.

“Can’t believe we found this. Part of me still thinks we’re having hallucinations, but we can enjoy the feeling for now at least.”

“I reckon we get to name the planet now, huh?” Phil says.

“Bit colonial.” Dan snorts.

Phil ignores him. “Howell… Lester… Howlester… Lestowell…”

“Please stop.”

“Let’s call it Planet PD.”

“No. Mate, c’mon.” Dan shakes his head profusely and laughs.

“We’ll keep brainstorming, then.” Phil’s lips twitch as he tries not to laugh.

Dan rolls his eyes and then pushes off the wall toward the window to stare out. It’s mesmerizing, still. Either they are moving, or the gas is rushing over them.

He pushes off the wall again and finds the gauge that tells them their reserves and level of oxygen. He blinks at it for a few moments.

“There’s no oxygen left,” he mutters.

“Well, what’s _your_ explanation, skeptic,” Phil says.

  
Dan looks back to him curiously. “Excuse me?”

“Dan. Everything that’s happening, it isn’t a random occurrence.”

“It’s an _unlikely_ occurrence. Coincidences can be amazing,” Dan says.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

Dan waits, but he thinks he knows what Phil is going to say.

“Something has a hand in doing all of this. We didn’t just drift off course perfectly centred into this planet…”

“Well, gravitational pulls…” Dan mutters.

Phil speaks louder, “...and had all of our controls shut down, and then had our _emotions_ change.”

Dan chews on his lip. “I hope you’re not talking about God.”

“No, what? Aliens!”

“I had to check.” Dan nods, looking around. He runs a hand through the air. “You think it’s this?”  
  


“Yeah. I think the gas is sentient. Or just a tool.”

“If so, I was right about aliens. Small, but just as dangerous,” Dan says.

“Shut up.”

As if to prove his point, the gas moves around. Wind doesn’t exist in the cabin, there’s no reason why it should swirl like that. They watch in wonder, and Dan swears he can hear Phil laugh with glee. He’s never known anything like this substance.

The gas keeps swirling around in the middle of them. It moves from the walls to the centre of the pod and clumps together, growing thinner and taller. Dan watches, making out what he thinks are recognizable shapes in the deep colours of shifting density. The gas seems to compress more, into what almost looks like a solid object, something that is a recognizable shape.

Dan’s smile falls. On instinct, he kicks toward Phil and grabs his arm tightly, looking at the gas figure, now compressed into the shape of one tall person. 

Gas continues to move until recognizable features form as indents. Empty eyes, a lump of a nose, a gaping hole for the mouth, a strange swirl on-top that resembles hair. The sides and legs lump out in what must be… clothing? 

An entirely green, swirling, figure of a man.

It stands in the middle of the room. It must be just about Dan and Phil’s height. Just about their own builds, too, like it’s mirroring them.

“ _Hello,_ ” comes a voice, and Dan feels Phil tense. It’s the radio, again, with the static and all. It’s Phil’s voice.

“ _We are aliens,_ ” speaks the radio again, words choppy and muffled, but utterly familiar.

Dan squeezes Phil’s arm so hard he knows it must hurt. He stares at the empty eyes in the figure.

“ _Not dangerous, no anxiety,_ ” comes the radio voice. Their voices, mixed together to form the sounds.

“What do you want?” Phil says. A few particles of green gas surround their head and Dan feels calm. 

“ _To explore your world,_ ” the radio says. 

Dan and Phil stare at it. 

“ _You want to get away from the world,_ ” it says. Dan recognizes his own voice being played and shivers run up his spine.

Some gas drifts from the being and toward them, surrounding their heads. It changes the colour of everything he can see, then wisps down their bodies to cover them. The entire space pod shakes and him and Phil are thrust in the direction to their feet, collapsing on the floor of the pod with identical grunts. Dan has to take a second to recognize what’s happening but it’s unmistakably the feeling of gravity pushing him to the floor.

He sees the door slowly open with a puff of air as the vacuum seal releases. He braces himself for cold, for all the oxygen to leave his lungs, but nothing happens, and he sees outside that they have landed on the bumpy, brown ground that’s littered with green. But if it is the same gas, it’s formed completely solid-looking clumps. It looks almost like a forest, though not one he’s ever seen before. Not with those structures. And not with the other pods scattered between like scrap metal. He might have thought it was just a metal graveyard if there wasn’t so much movement, other _beings_.

He pushes on his elbows while Phil similarly struggles against the pressure on their weakened legs to look out the space pod to the strange, busy world where life absolutely lives.

The gas they were floating in before is high in the sky, hundreds of metres up, like a dome around this land.

“ _New world, new home,_ ” their own voices on the radio say. The green figure falls into a puff of small particles and dissipates around Dan and Phil.


	3. Epilogue

The liquid is warm. Almost too warm; the kind where you eventually get lightheaded and crave a pile of snow that doesn’t exist to jump into, but stepping in for the first time is heavenly.

It takes Dan a while to get used to the temperature. He can never understand how Phil just plunges in and lets the steam rise up his face and fog his glasses. He seems fearless sometimes and Dan reckons if Phil is going to die, Dan better be in it with him. There’s no way he’s going to be left alone  _ here _ . 

Dan puts one leg in, sitting on the hard shore, then dunks the other leg. He breathes in the lovely smells.

Phil is already swimming backward and drifting away, watching Dan with a challenge in his eyes. Dan steps in a bit faster and his skin tingles at the temperature difference. He loses sight of Phil as he swims deeper into the green fog. 

Finally, Dan settles in with fluid up to his chin and releases a drawn-out sigh. The liquid is denser than water so he barely has to kick to stay afloat as he goes after Phil.

It’s dark, the nights here last longer than the days, or at least that’s how it feels. They like to be awake at night when the heat isn’t oppressive. It’s easy to do things when almost everything around them lights up. On the outside, everything is green and glossy, but when the sun goes beyond the horizon and the plants bloom, the insides are multicolour and glow fluorescent through the night. Sometimes the pollen like substance drifts into the night like sparks.

Dan pushes himself along with his arms and lets his chin sink under. Steam warms his cheeks and makes his eyes water. He keeps swimming along until he bumps into something. Something that grabs him, gently.

Dan’s breath catches in his throat, then he relaxes. “Hello, you,” he says.

The green mist always surrounds them like makeshift spacesuits. When they come close enough to touch, the gas expands to a bubble around the both of them so he can see Phil clearly, without the mask of green swirls. His eyes  _ do  _ shine endless colours; he learned that quickly.

Phil wraps his legs around Dan’s hips and Dan has to quickly find the ground underneath him so his head isn’t submerged by Phil’s weight pulling him down. 

His feet sink ankle-deep into the soft material. Sometimes he’s still worried a less-friendly creature will grab him, attack him, eat him alive. It hasn’t happened yet. He usually keeps his distance, but Phil is better with the beings around them. It’s clear there are no common means of communication, so they don’t say anything. Instead, they treat everyone else like they would animals back home, though with more respect than they would on earth where humans often felt superior. Phil is awkward, bowing and smiling at faceless creatures and observing from a distance. Some of the creatures treat  _ him  _ like an animal, going as far as to gently stroke their tentacles along his hair that’s grown out many inches and falls down the side of his face. Dan thinks he’s too trusting, but Phil acts like he's returned home.

They may or may not have stumbled across a few creatures, almost spherical in shape aside from the jagged spikes, who were restrained by green straps. They left quickly and decided not to think about it too closely. They’ve come to a wordless agreement to stay peaceful. Even to the plants and the still formations of matter. They just observe. They don’t know what would happen otherwise.

Phil keeps staring at Dan’s face. Dan’s waiting for him to kiss him, but he doesn't, just stays a few inches away. Dan starts to lean in and Phil moves back just far enough, his hands holding onto the back of Dan’s neck.

“I wanna look at you,” Phil says. His eyes move up and down. “Look at your curls.”

Dan rolls his eyes. The humidity has done a number on his curls. He hasn’t looked at his reflection in a while so he can try to believe Phil’s word, that maybe he’s kind of pretty.

“And what if I don’t want to be ogled?” Dan asks. He doesn’t move, though, he stares in Phil’s eyes.

“Deal with it or go run off with a hot alien,” Phil says.

Dan laughs silently, his body shaking. “Which aliens do you think are hot, Phil?” 

“Tell you another time.”

Phil pushes Dan’s curls off his forehead and presses a kiss in their place. He pulls back again and stares around his face. Dan has to breathe in deeply because his heart is currently thumping inside of him. He never could have imagined this, not any of it.

They have only ventured out a few kilometres each way from the space pod. It’s hard to let go of the familiar cabin, of the man-made things inside. They might need to take the sleeping bags and the cards and their notebooks and photos when they venture out, despite the bulk of it all. It’s still hard to let go of the feeling of safety sleeping inside. It’s hard to let go of the clothing as it grows more and more tattered every time Phil trips on a lump. Phil’s family photos are wearing down from the edges in. He likes to be alone when he looks at them. Dan hopes Phil will talk to him one day about how he feels, maybe when they grow closer and trade all the stories they have to share. He wants to know it all, even if those stories of time on earth leave a strange nostalgia in his chest, the feeling of  _ never again _ . 

And maybe one day Dan will come to terms with how  _ he  _ feels, having become completely untethered to earth and everyone he knew, everything he depended on. Away from everything he hated, everything he felt estranged from, too.

It seems inevitable that they will have to let go of it all and venture on. It’s calling for them, itching under their skin every time they walk a bit further on their slowly-strengthening legs and grudgingly decide to hike back home for sleep. The green gas regenerates food that is completely identical to the food they brought with them and the water fills in their bottles, a miracle of chemistry Dan decides, so nothing else really restricts them but their hearts. The planet pulled them in, and he plans to figure out why that is.

Their curiosities are stimulated here. Dan mostly writes about the green gas in his notebook, mapping out the characteristics and the power it holds and his own theories about its capabilities. He might be analyzing it while it analyzes him analyzing it, he thinks. It hurts his brain but in an altogether satisfying way. Phil prefers to write about the aliens they come across.

They, too, are aliens, he supposes. Immigrants to this planet that has taken them. In return for something that doesn’t seem malicious, at least not yet.

When Phil apparently decides he’s stared at Dan for long enough, he moves in, squeezing Dan’s shoulders and sucking at his bottom lip. Dan wonders idly if the creatures around them think they’re trying to mate. They might not know any better.

Something swims past Dan’s shin, a smooth exterior gliding through his legs for a few seconds until it’s gone. He gasps but tries to keep his fear under control. It isn’t too hard with teeth nibbling at his jaw all of a sudden.

He isn’t quite comfortable with having the unknown every two steps ahead of him. For now, though, he just has to live and go on, lose the expectation of being saved. Being rather happy is just a pleasant side-effect.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr link!](https://det395.tumblr.com/post/623191758776467456/in-my-arms-ill-catch-you)   
>  [art link!](https://nebulaearecool.tumblr.com/post/623191438423883776/here-is-my-first-finished-art-piece-for-the)


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